Beyond Thundering Waters: Dark Folklore, #1

By Georgina Jeffery

A dark fairy tale in a modern Norwegian setting. When a young girl meets a huldra in the wilderness, she unwittingly makes a supernatural bargain that puts her Pappa's life at stake.

Ida, a young girl grieving the loss of her mother, is wandering in the snow when she meets the mysterious Maja - a huldra from myth and legend. Taking comfort in Maja's kind arms, Ida makes a desperate wish for her family to be whole again... and gets far more than she bargained for.

With her own home turned against her, Ida must race across the wild valley to save her Pappa and confront the huldra before time runs out.

This is a standalone novelette of about 8,700 words, and is the first installment in the Dark Folklore series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Coblyn Press
• Release date: May 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201183578

Georgina Jeffery

Georgina Jeffery is a British speculative fiction writer living in Shropshire, England. Her stories blend elements of fantasy, humour and horror, and tend to reflect her penchant for mythology and folklore. She writes in frenetic sprints during her daughter’s naptimes, or very late into the night. Sign up to her newsletter to receive a free short story today.

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Georgina Jeffery

Beyond Thundering Waters

First published by Coblyn Press 2022

Copyright © 2022 by Georgina Jeffery

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

Georgina Jeffery asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

https://georginajeffery.com/

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Contents

Beyond Thundering Waters

About the Author

Also by Georgina Jeffery

Beyond Thundering Waters

Iwas ten years old when I met the troll.

The peaks of the Utladalen valley were in the grip of winter, and snow lay thick on the mountains and their slopes of open forest. I was walking the road along the river, the one that would eventually lead to the mighty Vettisfossen waterfall a further three miles away.

The bare birch trees lining the path shone bright in the afternoon light; I’d always thought they looked as if someone had painted snow on them. When I was much younger, and first saw them rising out of the deep, icy drifts, I thought perhaps the snow itself had grown into a tree.

I knew the trail very well. Mamma had shown me all the waterfalls along it, and we’d once gotten so close to the foot of Vettisfossen that we were soaked through for the walk home. Now, the smaller falls lay still, entombed in ice.

I was not supposed to be out there alone.

I’d been walking for a long time. My legs ached, fatigued from pushing through deep snow in my heavy reindeer wellies. Mamma had bought them for me for my last birthday.

I sat down on a bank where green bilberry shoots poked out of the snow and buried my face in my knees. Immediately, I regretted it. Bitter cold seeped in through my waterproof trousers, despite the blinding sun overhead. The sky was blue and empty – a perfect day. It only amplified my loneliness.

‘I should just stay here and die of cold,’ I told the snow. ‘No one would notice.’

‘Why is that, poor child?’

I squealed, startled into panic by the voice. ‘Who’s there?’

Soft